


the lion's jaws

by screechfox



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Age Difference, Basira Hussain POV, Bondage, Codependency, Established Relationship, F/F, Marking, Overstimulation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Possessive Behavior, Season/Series 03, Sex Toys, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:28:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25606633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/pseuds/screechfox
Summary: When Basira was a teenager, one of her friends started offering tarot readings, five quid each. Over and over again, Basira’s card would come up as Strength — a woman holding a lion’s jaws shut, no fear or anger on her placid, beautiful face.Her friend had laughed every time, talked about symbolism— compassion, courage, patience. Controlling your raw emotions to bring calm to yourself and the situations around you.These days, Basira looks at Daisy, and wonders if it hadn’t been slightly more literal than that.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 11
Kudos: 63
Collections: Femslash After Dark 2020





	the lion's jaws

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skvadern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/gifts).



Sometimes, Basira wonders how stupid Daisy thinks she is. 

Basira has spent hours of her life helping to clean the blood from Daisy’s skin, has fucked her through the adrenaline until she was sobbing. Basira knows Daisy’s violence as intimately as she knows everything else about her; Daisy isn’t subtle enough to hide. Basira can’t forget the look of betrayal on Daisy’s face as she held her knife to Jon’s throat, as though Basira had committed some cardinal sin by acknowledging what Daisy is.

Well. Maybe Basira is a little stupid, because Daisy doesn’t just kill monsters, she kills people, and maybe that makes Daisy a monster as well. Maybe it makes Basira one too, for overlooking that, for pretending that Daisy is the type of woman to go on a righteous quest against the things in the dark.

When Basira was a teenager, one of her friends started offering tarot readings, five quid each. Over and over again, Basira’s card would come up as Strength — a woman holding a lion’s jaws shut, no fear or anger on her placid, beautiful face.

Her friend had laughed every time, talked about symbolism— compassion, courage, patience. Controlling your raw emotions to bring calm to yourself and the situations around you.

These days, Basira looks at Daisy, and wonders if it hadn’t been slightly more literal than that.

When they leave Bouchard’s office, Basira reaches out and catches Daisy’s wrist. Daisy spins on her heel, arms raising as though she’s going to push Basira into the wall.

“What?” she demands, mouth contorted into a snarl. Her teeth are digging into her lip hard enough to draw blood.

Basira thinks of a knife at Jon’s throat, of crimson spilled on the forest floor, and sighs.

“Come back to mine,” she says, offering herself as the bait in a trap.

Daisy’s eyes are very wide, deep brown flecked with predatory amber. Her tongue runs over her teeth as she stares at Basira, anger fading into something restless. At long last, she exhales, shoulders falling in submission as the fight goes out of her. 

“Alright,” she says quietly, linking her fingers with Basira’s hard enough to hurt.

Daisy’s battered car is too obviously hers, with its creaking cassette player and the bloodstain still sinking into the fabric of the back seat, so Basira calls a taxi. They sit on the front steps of the Institute while they wait. At some point, Basira’s hand comes to rest on the back of Daisy’s neck. Neither of them talk for the journey to Basira’s flat; they both know what’s going to happen.

Normally, they’re an unadventurous couple. Daisy is a fiend with her tongue, and seems to make it a personal challenge to make Basira lose her composure as quickly and violently as possible. Basira prefers to use her fingers to get a better view of Daisy at her most vulnerable, cheeks flushed red as an open wound.

This, though, is their once-in-a-blue-moon routine: Daisy gets undressed and lies on the bed, and Basira rummages around in the bottom of her wardrobe until she finds a set of restraints.

Somehow, seeing Daisy naked is still overwhelming, even after all this time. She’s gorgeous, of course — at least in Basira’s opinion — but that’s not really the point. Basira is never more aware of how competent Daisy is than when it’s all laid bare; every inch of freckled flesh shows more scars, and even Basira doesn’t know the stories behind most of them. 

Maybe if Basira had stayed in the police, she’d have looked like Daisy one day. It’s all too easy to imagine — twenty years from now, face lined with decades of anger, body marked by violence.

“Safeword?” Basira asks, as she fastens a cuff around one of Daisy’s wrists.

There’s a moment of no response, Daisy’s breaths coming hard and fast. Basira pauses in the middle of securing the cuff to the headboard, and makes eye contact with Daisy.

“Safeword, or we don’t do this,” Basira says, firmer this time. 

“… Bouchard.” The word sounds fractured on Daisy’s tongue, brittle as broken glass.

“Bouchard,” Basira agrees, forcing down the lump in her throat.

She moves down the bed to fasten cuffs around each of Daisy’s ankles. Daisy starts fighting as soon as she’s fully restrained, throwing all of her energy into trying to get free. Basira’s bed creaks underneath her, but the poor thing has been on the verge of giving out for years now. Daisy isn’t a bulky woman, but her muscles are lean and strong as she struggles, back arching against the mattress. Her feet are braced, toes curling in the sheets, and her every breath is heavy, animal in its intensity. She’s beautiful, all her power focused within herself.

“Is it therapeutic?” Basira asks, keeping her voice low.

Daisy doesn’t reply in words, but the way her lips curl into a snarl is answer enough. 

Careful not to disturb Daisy’s struggles, Basira sits down on the edge of the bed. She strips quickly, methodically, until she’s only wearing a long-sleeved shirt and some briefs. Reaching into her nightstand, she pulls out her vibrator, turning it on to check that it still has battery. 

Daisy must have broken loose from one of her cuffs, because when Basira turns around, their faces are inches apart. Her breath is hot and vicious against Basira’s skin; her growl sends shivers down Basira’s spine. Movements slow, Basira raises her empty hand to Daisy’s cheek.

“Steady,” she tells her. “You’re alright.”

She tilts her head up, throat bared. It’s a purposeful vulnerability, but that doesn’t make it any easier not to flinch when Daisy buries her face in the crook of Basira’s neck.

“Mine,” Daisy murmurs. An untrained ear might hear it as a snarl, but Basira knows it for the sob that it is. “Mine, Basira. _”_ She inhales deeply, her teeth scraping across Basira’s skin. Her mouth is warm and yielding in a way that Daisy so often isn’t, right up until she bites down.

Dull pain turns to something sharper, the tender ache of Daisy’s love in all its forms. Bruises are going to bloom on Basira’s skin tomorrow, mottled flowers of broken blood vessels.

“Yours,” Basira promises, but all she can think about is the ink that bled across the paper as she’d written her name on the Institute’s contract and made herself into a hostage. 

She moves her hand down to Daisy’s sternum, pressing her back onto the pillows.

“Are you going to stay there? Or do you want me to re-cuff you?”

Daisy doesn’t speak, but she flexes her free hand in a repetitive motion — fingers splayed, then balled up into a fist. Basira pulls the cuff back onto her wrist, careful to buckle it firmly this time. She gets into position between Daisy’s legs, caressing her thighs with a gentle motion that makes Daisy kick out reflexively. Again, Basira’s bed creaks in protest.

“Steady,” Basira repeats. The air feels stuffy, every breath a struggle.

“Fuck, Basira, just get on with it.” Daisy’s words startle Basira into a laugh; she’s gratified to see Daisy’s lips quirk up in turn. This is an ordeal, a coping mechanism, but they're still Daisy-and-Basira.

“Bossy.” 

Basira reaches out and runs a finger between Daisy’s folds, so slow that Daisy groans. She’s wet already, which isn’t a surprise. Basira doesn’t fully understand it, but something about the adrenaline — the struggle, the chase — turns Daisy on. Rubbing gentle circles around Daisy’s clit, Basira pushes her to the edge and leaves her balancing there. When Daisy’s skin is shimmering with sweat, Basira picks up the vibrator. It’s cheap and honestly pretty low-quality, but you wouldn’t guess it from the bitten-off sound Daisy makes as Basira traces it across the sensitive skin between her thighs. 

Tonight, they both need this: the control and the lack of it both.

Overstimulation isn’t something Basira enjoys, but when Daisy is bucking beneath her, back arching against the mattress and hands clinging white-knuckled to the bed-frame, it makes sense. For all that Daisy spends her life running from one fight to another, this is the only pain she accepts. It’s not something to do battle with; it’s just her body, nerves sparking electric.

“I’ve got you,” Basira murmurs, watching a few stray tears escape down Daisy’s cheeks.

For such an ordeal, it’s remarkably quick. Basira slides the vibrator up and down in a gentle rhythm until Daisy finally goes limp in the restraints. Her eyes are unfocused and her expression is fragile, as though she’s about to start crying for real.

Basira sits back on her haunches, discarding the vibrator to the side as she runs a gentle hand down one of Daisy’s legs. Basira is no masseuse, of course, but she does her best to rub all of the tension away, and Daisy rewards her with a groan whenever Basira finds a sore spot. Basira’s hand brushes across the sole of her foot as she unbuckles the cuff, and she smiles as Daisy’s toes curl on reflex. It’s an honour to see all these little vulnerabilities.

Once Daisy’s legs are free, Basira shuffles forward, sheets scratching against her shins. She reaches out to one of Daisy’s arms, feeling muscles tense underneath scarred skin.

Even restrained, Daisy is agile; somehow, when Basira is working on the cuff, Daisy manoeuvres herself so that she can link their fingers together, pulling Basira in closer. It’s stupidly romantic, by Daisy’s standards, but— 

“Daisy, I do need my hand to uncuff you.”

“Leave me,” Daisy manages after a moment, lips quirked up with tired humour. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll get muscle cramps,” Basira corrects, trying and failing to be stern. Daisy isn’t really the aftercare sort, not for herself, but Basira has done her best to wrangle her into accepting some comfort after their more arduous scenes. 

“Hm. Your story checks out, Ms Hussain.”

Daisy lets her go, and Basira makes quick work of the other two cuffs. For all that she’s restless enough to be mischievous, she goes pliant when Basira shifts her to a more comfortable position.

Looking up at Basira, Daisy blinks slowly, and everything seems to be how it should be.

“You want me to get you some water?” Basira asks, preparing to stand up.

“… Don’t go.” Daisy’s voice has regained some of its usual command; Basira shivers, feeling a jolt of arousal trickle down her spine like fear. “I don’t want you out of my sight tonight.”

They signed their lives away today, to a smug murdering arsehole with an unknown agenda. Basira doesn’t know which of those things scares her more. She doesn’t particularly want to leave Daisy alone either.

“I’ll stay right here,” Basira promises— and that, at least, is a promise she knows she can keep.

Basira lies down next to her so they’re face-to-face. Without saying anything, Daisy reaches out and relinks their fingers, letting their body heat sink into each other.

That’s how it is for a while: staring at each other, drowsy and restless all at once, and occasionally murmuring reminiscences that seem all too bittersweet now. They’ve spent years of their lives joined at the hip, and now they’re at risk of shattering apart. Daisy’s free hand presses against her cheek, startling Basira out of her thoughts.

“Want to eat you out,” Daisy mutters.

It’s not a part of their normal routine on nights like these, and Basira almost says as much— but then Daisy fixes Basira with a piercing gaze, and she forgets all her protests. 

“Yeah.” Basira prays she doesn’t sound as desperate as she feels. “Yeah, that’d be— good.”

Daisy laughs, low and fond. Even though she’s exhausted, it seems to take no effort for her to push Basira onto her back, climbing on top of her with a decisive look on her face. Her teeth gleam as she grins, tongue running over her canines. She looks wild and untamed, and Basira loves her far too much for words.

At least for now, there’s nothing for Basira to fight against.

Daisy brushes a lock of hair out of Basira’s eyes as she leans down. Basira meets her in the middle, their lips pressing together for just a moment, a wonderful warm moment.

“Thank you,” Daisy murmurs against Basira’s mouth.

It doesn’t last. They break apart, and Daisy shuffles backwards so she can tug Basira’s briefs down her thighs. Her mouth is hot and wet against Basira’s skin, and Basira can tell from the defiant flick of her tongue that she’s going to take her time tonight.

Good. Maybe by the time Daisy is done, Basira will be able to pretend that their world is only these four walls, only this bed. Maybe she won’t think of the complexity that awaits them in the morning, the tapestry of horror that they’ve woven themselves into.

Maybe, just maybe, Basira will feel like less of a monster for loving Daisy. Maybe.


End file.
